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- <text id=91TT2460>
- <title>
- Nov. 04, 1991: Business Notes:Communications
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Nov. 04, 1991 The New Age of Alternative Medicine
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 65
- Business Notes
- COMMUNICATIONS
- Getting Totally Wired
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Although both are public utilities that deliver their
- services directly into American homes by wire, cable-TV operators
- and phone companies have rarely competed head to head. But with
- deregulation and new technology blurring the lines between
- them, the two businesses are set to collide. The showdown drew
- closer last week, when the Federal Communications Commission
- proposed rules that would hasten the phone industry's entry into
- the TV business.
- </p>
- <p> Under the FCC proposal, telephone companies would be
- allowed to package and deliver a smorgasbord of television
- programming, including shows already carried by cable systems
- and broadcast stations. The programs would be transmitted via
- a so-called video dial tone, carried over fiber-optic cable,
- which would cost the phone companies billions of dollars to
- install. Defending their turf, cable-TV operators contend that
- the phone companies would have an unfair advantage because they
- could subsidize their video service with profits from their
- phone business.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-